L.A. Police Chief Nominee Shares Plans For Future At Forum
Comments (1)
Los Angeles Police Chief nominee Charlie Beck speaks with reporters after
answering questions at an open forum in El Sereno. (photo by Jon Polakoff)
More than 150 East Los Angeles residents packed the El Sereno Senior Center Thursday night to meet Deputy Police Chief Charlie Beck, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top pick to succeed outgoing chief Bill Bratton.
The town hall-style forum allowed attendees a chance to bring their concerns directly to the man Villaraigosa has tapped to take over the helm of the third-largest police departments in the nation.
Thursday's forum was the last in a series of three meetings hosted by Villaraigosa to introduce Beck, 56, to the public.
Former coworkers and associates attended the event to support Beck. Chinatown Business Improvement District Executive Director George Yu worked alongside Beck in the late 1990s when Beck first got promoted to captain of the police department's Central Division.
"Back then I always thought he was a pretty special captain," Yu said. He praised Beck's knack for community policing. "I didn't know he would be police chief."
Yu said Beck worked hand-in-hand with the Business Improvement District and similar community organizations to keep crime at bay, giving Chinatown the luxury of focusing on quality of life issues, instead of worrying about crime rates.
A graduate of Cal State Long Beach, Beck, 56, has 32 years experience on the force, earning distinction while helping to reform the department's infamous Rampart Division.
In joining the force, Beck, whose own father retired from the department as deputy police chief, carried on a family tradition. Several other members of Beck's family also serve in law enforcement.
Calling the police veteran a "man of great humility and of great character," Villaraigosa said choosing between Beck, Deputy Chief Michel Moore, and Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell was agonizing.
A consult with a local rabbi and long-time friend, whom Villaraigosa declined to name, helped clarify the decision for the mayor.
"He said, 'Go with the guy who could have best reached you when you were 17,'" Villaraigosa said, who once got expelled from high school.
Beck pledged to the crowd at El Sereno to bring his own trademark of policing to the force's top job and distinguished his style of leadership from Bratton's in one critical way.
While Bratton believed in making change from the top down, Beck plans to empower the divisions to "take ownership" of crime in their jurisdiction and vowed to give them the resources to do it.
"These are local problems, and they have to be dealt with on a local level," Beck said.
Beck encouraged individuals and community members to forge relationships with local captains and become involved.
Questions from the audience ranged from gangs to the estimated 15,000 parolees expected to be furloughed.
One Mt. Washington man said he constantly worried about the safety of his children with the high number of parolees released in the city and asked if the police department could block the furloughs.
The department cannot, Beck said, but argued that offering jobs and another way of life could prevent many parolees from returning to a life of crime.
"It's going to be very tough, but we are going to have to accept these people back in and give them the chance to go the right way," he said.
Beck said he hopes to continue improving the police department.
"The potential of this department has not yet been realized," he said.
